The theme of this shot is basically light rising from darkness. Out of the darkness and cold of winter, beauty emerges. It was taken with a Nikon D3000 with an 18-55mm lens. Shutter speed was 1/60, the aperture was F3.5, and the ISO was at 110. The shot was almost a mistake, the flash went of without my intention, but I got a beautiful shot out of it.
-Matt Nicolae

These little critters get dropped off every year to eat down the hill side on my property.
Nothing says spring like a spring lamb!
Shot them with a Canon 1Ds Mark II, 100mm Macro 2.8 lens, ISO 320 1/100 F2.8
-Joshua LaCunha

These are the first cherry blossoms this year on my parents cherry tree. I found them last sunday (hope sunday counts as part of the challange :-)) while my kids where searching for easter-eggs.
The image was shot with my Nikon D40X
Technical data:
Shutter 1/500
Aperture f/11.0
Max Aperture f/4.4
Focal Lenght 34mm
ISO 1600
No Flash, No Tripod
-Nikolaus Gradwohl

Shot on an iPhone 3GS at the corner of Park Ave and 86th Street in Manhattan. Photo was toned using the app Tilt Shift Generator. I don't think the iPhone puts out the higher resolution requested.
-Ryan Meehan

Taken 2 April 2010, while I was out for a walk. It's still cold here in Germany. Hopefully this bit of green is a sign of warm days to come.
NIKON D300, f/10, 1/250 sec, ISO 140, 55mm.
-William Wrenn

Shot with Fuji S602z
f2.8
1/550
iso-200
10mm
flash
Picture was taken in the evening sun with a fill flash. My son getting ready for his first regular season little league baseball game.
-Paul Keefer

Used Canon T2i w/ 18-55 mm IS kit lens. 1/500 shutter speed, F5.0, 400 ISO, Auto White Balance.
I edited the smaller image with Aperture, enhancing contrast and color just a little bit.
The photo is of this ceramic frog at my parents house. It's settled underneath a little tree, and I thought it was perfect. The tree has no leaves, and it still looks like it's in winter, whereas the frog is relaxing in the sun. I thought it captured the essence of spring really well.
-Joseph Medina

This was shot at the Academy of the New Church grounds in Bryn Athyn, PA. They have a really scenic and well-maintained campus, and this was a bud on one of the trees.
Shot was taken with a Canon EOS 7D, handheld, with the EF28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens, no flash @ ISO200, 135mm, 0ev, f/5.6, 1/1250.
-Sam Garber

Taken with a Canon7D and a 18-200mm EF-S lens @ 200mm 1/250th f/5.6. I took a bit to frame up the shot and make sure it was exactly centre and rearrange some of the branches in the back to create a circle around the bud.
-Carson Perrotti

Technical specs:
Taken with a Nikon D60, with a Nikon E 50mm f/1.8 on a PK-13 extension tube. Shutter speed of approximately 1/250 at f/8, ISO 400.
Taken at the Rutgers Botanical Gardens in New Brunswick, NJ.
-Wesley Jen

f/16 1.6sec ISO-400 18mm
During the spring time here in Oregon the wife and I get horrible allergies. To us the essence of spring is the essence of Zyrtec (or the discount equivalent).
-Nick Ritch

I wasn't sure if I'm allowed to send more than 1 entry and so sent 2 entries (1 in each email). If this's not the case, please ignore one of them,
Canon EOS 500D
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro
F/11
1/30
ISO 100
handheld
Plant in my backyard that I took with my new Canon lens
-Rahul Chandana

I noticed this lone crocus on
the edge of our driveway under heavy brush and bushes. No one had
planted it. I thought to commemorate its fortitude with a photo.
Nikon D90 with a 18-105 Nikkor lens, ISO 200, Aperture f/5.6, Exposure 003 sec (1/400), No flash
-Drew Frist

Canon 5D Mark II, EF50mm, ISO 100, f/1.4 USM, f/1.6, 1/2500 sec
Shot in a display of bright pink tulips at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens on Easter Sunday. Choose to make a unopened flower the focal point instead of the surrounding blooming flowers. The narrow depth of field makes it look like an impressionist painting.
-Andrew Rasmussen

Camera: Sony A700
Lens: Sony 100mm F2.8 Macro
ISO: 200
f stop: F5
Shutter Speed: 1/125
To me easter eggs always signal the beginning of spring. And nothing says spring in San Diego more than dying Easter eggs on Easter morning with a nice earthquake to shake everything up! Brought some eggs out to the grass to take some nice spring pictures, hope you like it.
-Tyler Fogle

Shot with a Canon SX20is on Easter Sunday. Allaire State Park, Wall, NJ. First warm day and they just emerged from hibernation.
-Steve Zchiegner

This photo was taken with a Nikon D40 & Sigma DG APO 70-300mm lens. It was shot at f/5.6 with a shutter speed at 1/640, and an ISO of 800.Small amounts of contrast & vibrancy were added via Camera Raw 4.0.
-Ian Bosak

Nikon D60, 14-24mm (@14mm) f/7.1, 1/160s hand held. Double processed NEF from CNX2, followed by some photoshop exposure blending to rescue the blue in the sky, and painting out some small rainbow flare bits.
Took this a couple days ago while walking through a park, on my way to take pictures of something else. The neon yellow of new tree leaf growth almost always looks distracting / awful in pictures, but in this case it worked as a contrast to the shadows.
-Christopher Bozzelli

Shot with a Nikon D80. I took this shot with auto functions and had left the flash open, and when I came back inside this was the most interesting shot from all day!
-Kendall Gibson

I just poured a glass of iced tea and dripped water on it (because I'm too impatient to wait for it to condensate). I used a humble Canon PowerShot A1000IS with the macro setting (oddly enough, it doesn't show you the ISO).
-Ethan Turkeltaub

Taken with an Olympus E-510 and the 50mm f 2.0 Macro at the National Arboretum in Washington D.C.
-Jon Bailey

I usually shoot with a Canon SLR but my girlfriend and I were out and the only camera we had was her P&S Olympus FE-370. I set the camera to super-macro and kept taking pictures of this bee till it flew away. I was impressed by how well the shots came out for a fairly old P&S. No special settings, just auto mode.
-Shayan Rostam

I am using a Canon PowerShot SD400 with a soft macro setting.
This picture is of the blossoming cherry trees in my backyard, which are the first things that come to mind when I think of spring! The flowers on this tree are absolutely gorgeous so I though they deserved to be entered this week.
-Louis Levine

Taken with a Canon Rebel T1i with kit lens and 10x magnifying filter at 1/60 sec, f/4.5 and 100 ISO, 18mm focal length, tripod mounted.
This tulip was hidden behind a dogwood tree in my yard, and after I first noticed it, I had to wait four days for the bloom to open. Only thing I did besides adjust the levels was I ran the background through the Dark Strokes filter in PS.
-Steven RIcard

Took this photo on a sunny spring day with my Opteka 0.20x fisheye lens. It was attached to a Nikon 18-70 on a Nikon d60 body. The lens was placed less than an inch from the plant. It is equivalent in this setup to a full frame 6mm lens. ISO was set at 200. D60 body. Roughly equivalent to 6mm. ƒ 5, 1/100 of a second.
-Grant Barron

Samsung NX10
18-55mm zoom lens
18mm
1/750s
f/3.8
ISO: 100
Took a wide aperture shot of the blossoms of the Bradford pear tree in my front yard. I was trying to capture the details of the blossoms, while blurring out the background and giving the appearance of a sea of blossoms.
-Derek Fulford

This is my first photo entry ever :) I just so happened to be at the Anza Borrego Desert today :D
I just caught one of these cactus flowers on my trip.
I used a Canon EOS Digital XSi with ISO400, shutter speed of 1/800 and with a 18-55 lens.
-James Vipatapat

For this shot I used a Nikon D90 with an 18-105mm lens. Just saw this yellow flower among the dead ones and thought it would be an interesting shot. Shutter speed was 1/60 at an aperture of 5.6 and ISO setting of 200.
-Julian Tempelsman

Shot on a Nikon D40 with the 18-55 Kit lens at 5.6f on a nice sunny day. Few things say spring better than cherry blossoms. It was a bit windy which caused some of the blur in the background.
-Phillips Nicholas

Camera: Nikon D90, jammed into a nook of the tree to keep it steady during the exposure.
Lens: Tokina 11-16 mm f/2.8
Focal Length: 16 mm
Exposure: 0.6 sec at f/2.8
ISO: 250
The shot was inspired by the lines in the challenge post "the long-slumbering skeletons of wood are coming back to life". This was shot in a bloom of cherry trees on Roosevelt Island in New York City. The setting spring sun on the right casts a warm glow on the branch, and the pink blossoms of the tree impart a pinkish hue to the other side. The sky is bright blue on this unseasonably warm evening.
-Sourabh Banerjee

Here is a picture of my weeping cherry tree in my front yard. Every spring it will bloom white for about 2 days. During this time the bumble bees love to go at it. This particular bumble didn't mind posing. This was taken with a simple Panasonic FZ-35 at at ISO-80 F4.5.
-Scott Robbins

Nikon Coolpix s560 point-and-shoot. These Dogwood trees are in my neighbor's yard and i just snapped it and did a little photoshop coloring and blurring.
-Caleb Modjeska

One warm day after work (about a week ago) I cruised to a nearby mall and went to the 4th story of a parking structure and waited for the sun to make its way down. It was the first clear day in Santa Ana with no haze after all the rain we had here in Southern California. So, I took the shot around 6:45pm as the sun meandered by some palm trees. I just rested the camera on a concrete pillar that used to support a light, but the light had been removed making the surface nice and flat.
Camera: Nikon D5000
Lens: Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR
Mode: Aperture
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 180mm
F-stop: 5.6
Exposure Time: 1/4000
Metering: Pattern
-Todd Loenhorst

Equipment: Canon Rebel t1i and its basic lens.
Setting: Downtown Toronto behind Nathan Philip Square
Technique: point-and-shoot on manual mode.
Shutter Speed: 0.25 sec (1/4)
Aperture: f/5.6
I took the photo today cause i thought it will be awesome to take flower, plants etc after the rain. I was walking downtown when i came across this stray plant growing by the side of a building. It was the only dark color alive there (apart) from the greenish, brownish plants from the fall.
-Michelle Data

Took this shot at the end of the day as the sun was setting, the whiteness of these blooming flowers were just standing out
Canon EOS 50D
Exposure: 0.025 sec (1/40)
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 105 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire
-Rick Gomes

Nikon D300s with Nikkor AF 70-300mm @ 270mm
1/640sec @ f/5.3
ISO 1000
Took this after it had stopped raining. Spring is here and the weather is great!
-Pooya Gharahgozli

Nikon d3000
1/50s
f/25.0
ISO: 800
Spring happened and I was going out to take pictures of it. So I found a tree, turned the ISO up to 800, and looked to the sky. I got this.
-Austin Gohn

This is from Brooklyn, NY a few days ago.
I was bored and went for walk at about 1pm and saw this flower.
I used a crappy old Canon PowerShot SD850-IS (8.0mp).
The settings were all auto with the exception of the macro function.
-Alison Amsterdam

Canon EOS REBEL T1i
EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
ISO-400
F-stop f/4.5
Exposure Bias -0.3 stop
Focal Length 70mm
I was in Japan at the time of shooting, at the Imperial Palace Garden, in the Kyoto Prefecture. Got some good shots, figured I would submit the one I felt fit best.
-Joshua Fisher

Used a Canon 7d 100 iso Canon 50mm Lens f/5.6 1/120sec Shot this on easter Day while it just bloomed In my aunts backyard Edited using Aperture and Photoshop
-Aaron Nickles

Shot with my Panasonic Lumix FZ-18 at ISO 200. It's a superzoom camera with fixed lens (28 to 504 mm). Maxed out the 18x zoom to capture this moment outside my window.
Squirrels have been running about more often ever since the snow melted, and on this occasion a cat stumbled across one of them. It froze and just sat there eyeing the squirrel. When I saw this scene I quickly grabbed my camera and took the picture on auto settings before the moment was lost. It didn't end in carnage though, as the squirrel saw the cat and immediately scurried up the tree right next to it.
-Yik Wen Goo

Nikon D80
18mm
f/22
Exposure: ½ sec
Iso 100
Spot metering
Spent Easter weekend in the Belgium Ardennes. 3 days of non-stop rain. On the day we returned it was a bright sunny day, and a pleasant spring temperature. On the way back home, we passed this creek, flowing at a good rate, full of water. The rain had supplied enough water for the moss covered stones, and the new undergrowth. Using a longer shutter speed, I was able to capture the speed of the flowing water as it rushed by me, with one foot in the water…
-Alistair Taylor

Camera = NIKON COOLPIX P90
F/3.5
Exposure 1/88
ISO-64
I took this shot of my garden pond, call me a hippy but i found it inspirational
the dead leaf, and the new life just waiting to break forth from its egg and
take its first breath in spring.
-Martin Steers

Here is a photo of my daughter. She holds a piece of ice in her hands, which shining like diamond under spring sun.
Shot taken in «Eastern courtyard» of «Museon» park in Moscow, Russia.
My equipment:
Canon EOS-300D with kit (18-55 mm) lens in Portrait mode (ISO 100, f/5, 1/500).
-Alexander Vasilyev

I took this shot around the street from my house, it is part of someone's landscaping in the front yard. I took this around 6pm when the lighting seemed just right - a bit overcast. I have no idea what type of flower/plant this is but it looks great and the color caught my eye. I have a Canon Digital Rebel XT i bought back in 2005 that I used - it's an 8MP camera and even though there are tons of new cams out there I still love this one - I also use a Tamron XR Di II LD 18-200 lens.
-Keith Brock

This is my picture for the Shooting Challenge. I took it in the dunes. This plant called my attention because it is almost ready to flower and this is also the thought I get when I think of season spring; every plant starts to get leaves and flowers.
I took the picture with my Canon 450D on these settings:
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
Aperture Value: F5,6
ISO: 100
Lens: the 18~55mm kit lens
-Max van der Kolk

This one was shot in the garden of one of my cousins, they had lots of bees flying between different flowers.
Shot using my Canon G11, telephoto end and macro mode.
1/160 sec, f4.5, ISO 200
-Mohammad Shafik

Canon XSi with EF35-70mm f/3.5/4.5
Exposure: Av Mode, ISO 100, f/4.0, 1/500, 49mm
Location: Norfolk Botanical Garden. This was a handheld shot. I was intrigued by the bright pink with the green background. After a pretty cold winter, this was a great sign that spring has finally arrived!
-Michael Trauffer

This photo was taken with my iPhone 3G using a 15X magnifier held directly touching the iPhone. No editing (other than downsizing for this submission).
I'm an amateur botanist, and I normally use my Nikon D80 for botanical shots. But I always carry my iPhone and my trusty magnifier with me, and combine them on occasion. Focussing is tricky, with a very narrow depth-of-field, but working in bright light definitely helps. I've blown several iPhone shots up to 14"*14" very successfully!
This crocus was one of our first spring flowers of the year - a welcome to local spring after we returned from three weeks in Japan!
-Mark Whitcombe

I used a Nikon D90 body with a 85mm f.1.4 prime. This shot was taken at ISO 200, f1.4 at 1/750.
Im not quite sure what this flower is, but it reminded me of cherry blossoms in Japan. It cheered me up a little bit.
-Eric Pepin

Canon PowerShot S90
6mm
ISO 80
f 2
1/100 sec
I was about to step on it but I realized that I had a camera. And a shooting challenge.
-Gray Crawford

Several years ago, some bio students at my school planted bluebonnet seeds in one of the ditches. They bloomed this week and I took my camera out to greet them.
Canon 40D, Sigma 70-200
(ISO 200. f/2.8-f/4
-Andrew Richardson